Dirk Nowitzki is one of the greatest players in NBA history. He’s a champion. An MVP. A Final MVP. He is a 14-time All-Star, a 12-time All-NBA pick and the league’s sixth leading scorer. But perhaps the most respected, or at least the most engaging number in Dirk’s career resume is one.
As in, he played for one franchise.
Dirk stayed with the Dallas Mavericks for 21 seasons, and when he won the championship in 2011, it was different from the titles many of these guys won by playing musical franchises until they landed on a winner. It was a title that the NBA community as a whole celebrated.
The Mavericks, of course, won the title against the Miami Heat in the infamous Big 3’s first season together. It was one of the most hated teams in history, turning the universally revered LeBron James into a villain. According to his former teammate, JJ Barea, Nowitzki was just there with everyone.
“… he hated Miami,” Barea said on JJ Redick’s “The Old Man and the Three” podcast. ‘He hated LeBron, Wade, Bosh. He’s never going to say it, but he could not stand it. ‘
The implication is that Nowitzki did not necessarily hate LeBron, Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh personally, but that he hated the idea that three All-NBA players would take a shortcut to the championship by coming together in their primes rather than to keep fighting the good fight like Nowitzki had in Dallas and still did.
But the contempt possibly became more personal when LeBron and Wade openly mocked Nowitzki for revealing to the media that he did not feel well before Game 5, possibly suggesting that Nowitzki had built an apology or that he was soft, or maybe that he just wasn’t cut out for the big stage. Here is the incriminating video.
Whatever the intentions of LeBron and Wade, they apparently lit a fire under Nowitzki, and by extension of the Mavericks, who continued in the aftermath of the video to win the next two games around Miami’s ring. to steal joint finger.
“When LeBron and Wade mocked him by coughing when he got a little sick … the clip really hurt him,” Barea said. ‘He would never say it, but he really saw the band, and the band really hurt him, and it gave him a little extra, which he did not need, but it gave him a little extra. given to complete it. ‘